The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights and protects a person from being compelled to be a witness against himself in a criminal case.
In the nineteenth century, Mexican American, Chinese, and white populations of the United States collided as white people moved farther west in search of land and riches. Neither Chinese immigrants nor Mexican Americans could withstand the assault on their rights by the tide of white settlers.
The phrase that best develops this personification of tyranny in stanza 2 is "I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
, was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat". In this phrase, Wheatly describes her capture from Africa as a very unfortunate and troublesome experience.
